Race and Inequality

Relationship Between Group Size and Hate Crime Rates

Distinguished Teaching Professor Of Sociology, University At Albany-SUNY

Key Findings

The results showed that anti-Black hate crimes were tied to geography.

Anti-Black hate crime rates were highest in the northeast, midwest and in counties along the border across the southern and western parts of the country.

The relative size of the Black population in a county has a negative and significant impact on the anti-Black targeting rates.

As the anti-Black group increases, the less likely there will be anti-Black hostile attacks.

Hate crimes are also more prevalent in affluent communities.

Description

In the article, “Understanding the Relationship Between Relative Group Size and Hate Crime Rates: Linking Methods with Concepts” Messner and his co-authors examine the influence of group size on racially motivated crimes. The authors used two major race theories to analyze their study. Both theories maintain that majority groups perceive gains by minority groups as threatening and that hate-crimes deliberately target individuals in the out-group to “maintain,” their power. The authors collected their data from the FBI, the U.S. Census, the American Community Survey and the Anti-Defamation League for anti-Black hate-crime occurrences nationally. The researchers build on previous hate-crime statistical research, which plugs the data collected into a formula to compute the probability of interactions between two different groups. The results showed that anti-Black hate crimes were tied to geography. Anti-Black hate crime rates were highest in the northeast, midwest and in counties along the border across the southern and western parts of the country. The relative size of the Black population in county has a negative and significant impact on the anti-Black targeting rates. Statistically, the data found that as the anti-Black group increases, the less likely there will be anti-Black hostile attacks. As the Black population increases, the number of conventional anti-Black hate crimes decreases. Hate crimes are also more prevalent in affluent communities. In conclusion, the authors note that geography is connected to hate crimes in the U.S and that these areas are places where different groups and races routinely mix.